Unlike wells or boreholes, water is always present in the air (humidity). The amount of water in the air sometimes is not much but it is there. The constraint has been to design a reliable technology able to create and collect the water. There is now a wind turbine that will allows people living in remote areas to benefit from access to safe water for a period of twenty years. Now that is energy and water from the wind at the same time. The device is capable of producing up to 1,200 liters of water a day.

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A room filled with air could contain a pound of water. Even in a desert it is common for dew to condense in the morning on the ground which is the same water that might be removed from the new wind turbine. And if all this sounds familiar to Star Wars fans, it is because it is is the same principle as moisture farms on Tatooine.

Meeting three needs with as many blades, the turbine generates 30kW of energy and up to 1,200 liters of water each day without producing any kind of carbon emissions. While it is still uncertain where or how the firm will manufacture their turbines when testing is complete, several nations on the Arabian peninsula have already expressed a keen interest in the product.

In remote areas without access to fresh drinking water, there is often the dual concern of a lack of electricity — which is what makes French company Eole Water’s innovative wind turbine so intriguing. Eole’s modified turbine not only harnesses wind for energy, but includes a compressor similar to that of a dehumidifier, which pulls in air to generate condensation.